Kaeli’s journey into addiction was years in the making. Struggling with extreme post-partum depression, a child’s significant medical challenges and her mother’s death, “I was using alcohol to cope,” she shares. Her turning point came when, rushing to pick up one of her sons from school, she got into a car accident with the other in the car.
“I got into a DUI with my child,” she says. “And that was the beginning of the end for me.”
The police took her children home, arrested Kaeli and brought her to jail. Upon her return late that night, she was consumed by a single thought.
“I just knew I couldn’t be there,” she recalls. “I knew I was a mess, and I had to step away from my kids. At that point, I was clearly a danger to them.”
The following morning, she took an Uber to an addiction treatment centre and begged them to take her in. “If I’d left that doorstep without getting help, I knew I would die,” she says simply. “I would have drunk myself to death, and that wasn’t an option. I needed to stop for my kids.”
While the centre allowed her to stay for a couple of days, however, accessing treatment there was cost prohibitive. “I started researching my options,” Kaeli recalls, “and I found Renascent. When I arrived, they handed me a stack of blankets and some essentials and told me to come on in.
I knew I was safe, and that my family was safe, too. It was heaven.”
She entered treatment immensely grateful – and determined not to squander the opportunity it presented. Kaeli actively participated in every class and saw a doctor who treated her for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders. As she healed, she also began preparing for her return to her family.
“Making my recovery a priority and repairing my relationships was essential to me,” she explains. She set up a breathalyzer at home, attended 90 meetings in 90 days, began a fitness and yoga routine, and connected with her sponsor daily. When her DUI case went to court, the crown attorney commented he’d never seen someone do so much to make amends – and downgraded the charges against her as a result.
Still, she confirms, life today isn’t always easy. “Treatment centres are incredible places, and I’m alive because of one,” she says. “But sobriety and recovery are hard work. You have to put in the time to maintain it.”
And while the route to her son’s school takes her past the site of her accident each day, Kaeli knows the person she is today couldn’t be more different from the one she was just 18 months ago.
“I am now the absolute best version of myself,” she says. “I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been, I have access to the medication I need, I have peace and ease in my life. I have so much inner strength I wasn’t aware of before. Most of all, I have energy for my kids.
I am so grateful.”
